Plug

It is good to have people leaving comments for the opinions that I spilled out on the blog but somehow I do wonder what those people think who choose not to comment. They probably have more to say about, be it postive or negative. Sigh..

I found this image in my folder. I was actually in the engineering library trying to use my laptop and looking for plug. Instead of a NZ plug version, I found this version of plug. How surprising, right? I didn't have to use my adapter.

Choices

I just finished reading on this friend's post about choices. I agree with him. If I can look back and change my decision, my life wouldn't be like this today. Yes, there are some things that you would sure want to change but there are some things that you wouldn't want it to change. Like he said of what he does, I also let God's strength to help me do things right. I may not be perfect and that's my unique self. Humans can't change me and my personality. They can only influence me and I make the decision myself.

Influence, not change

I saw this statement from her blog: People don't change.
Her opinion changes a bit after an explanation.

Some people may change entirely but it should be due to something happen to them drastically. Others don't change but they are more like influenced by others.
So am I right?

I actually did a lot of thinking lately and have to consider my actions now and the future.

... making me confused...

The topic of spiritual came up in the conversation when I was talking to my friends. I don't consider myself very spiritual if compared to her and her. They spoke or blog about God more than I do and even the way they talked also shows how spiritual they are. The usage of words also shows that they are very spiritual. I accept the fact that they are different from me. Okay....

But when I talked to my friends more about this, I realise that I probably am worse. My friends listen to Christian songs while I don't. Okay, they don't really talk like her and her. But what I am wondering now is, all these things gives people impression of yourself. It doesn't mean that you are not spiritual, is it?

... making me confused...

Snow

I should mention about photos here. Had snow last Saturday. I was going to stay at home to finish off assignments so I can start studying for exams soon but something came up. It snowed that afternoon. It doesn't always snow in Christchurch so I dropped my books to go play snow fight with friends. Some photos taken of us are really very good. Let's have one nice picture here. =)

Anyway, at least I blog here. I haven't been blogging a lot lately. Have been getting lazy to blog about stuff.

On friendship

I am going to summarize what I hear and learnt from friendship from church camp and reading relationship book on friendship. First of all, there is this model of friendship list from a book called The Relationship Revolution by Nigel D. Polluck.

• mutual commitment

I think this is common. Friends do commit to each other.

• sacrificial love

From 1 Samuel in the Bible, it is the friendship from Jonathan and David. Jonathan's dad tried to kill David and Jonathan was almost killed because he was protecting David from his father.
I was thinking, in this kind of world now, no one would do that kind of thing because it is not the norm. People would think you are crazy and start thinking if gay or lesbian. *shakes head* Such a world.
From my point of view, friendships nowadays are just friends hanging out and helping each other out. I bet there is no such thing as sacrificial love between friends. I mean, if I ask you to die for your friend or friends, would you want to do that?

• openness and honesty

Honesty is a hallmark of real friendship. Friends do not pretend about themselves or others do not desire or need to cover up their struggles or failings. -Nigel D. Polluck-
You do have to be open and honest to your friends. If you are not sure if you can trust the friends you are with, don't open too much. But be honest because they won't like you and you can lose their trust in you if you happen to lie or do something bad to them or even one of them.

• service

Service? What do you mean by that? Well, I think it is more like you do things for your friends. I do believe that. Now compare with what you usually do for your siblings or parents. I think it is similar.
There are ways to show your love for your family and friends. You help them out on things, eg buying things for them or just helping out on chores. Anyway, my point is that if you yell at your siblings or parents or disobey them, that doesn't mean you don't love your family or siblings. =)

• God - centreness
• interdependence

Friendship is not about making people dependent upon us or about us becoming dependent on other people.
True friendship can only develop and grow when we work together, trust each other, help each other and rely on each other.
With true friends pointing out your weakness or something bad, I don't think you should keep it at heart and decide that he or she is not a good friend. Instead, you should look at yourself first and try to undo your weakness. Yes, you are not perfect and your friends are not perfect but it would help to study yourself first before start blaming on friends. Not all friends give good advice but some particularly do. Some friends are there to listen to you and give you a long big hug when you are down.
I do admit that I don't like my friends to see me crying if there is anything so I tend to go away or be quiet if I see my friends crying. So don't take it to heart, thinking that your friends desert you when you need someone to talk while you're crying.

• willing to let go

Friendship is so important and sometimes there are things that we need to let go in order to let the friendship to last. 1 Samuel 20:42 shows that.

Am I being too straight-forward? Hmm.. this is just my point of view. I will let you have your opinions, I won't judge or be defensive. I am beginning to refer to Bible verses a lot. =)

This is from church camp talks and I summarized it up. Some may be the same from what I said above.

• Friends do point out your mistakes or your differences. But how do you feel from it? Embarrassed or anger? If embarrassed, would you rather strangers telling you those or your friends? If anger, study yourself first before you start blaming your friends. Humans aren't perfect so your friends are there to tell you your differences. Again, would you rather strangers telling you?

I think I prefer my friends to tell me. I rather them laughing at me than strangers or friends whom I don't normally talk to.

• Friends don't just give advices or comfort you, they go through each step with you. They are there to guide you so don't keep them away. Remember that some friends deal with their problems better than you.
  

I feel like yelling it out

I am not sure how to cheer myself. I felt really down when I came back from Stats class yesterday. This reminds me of what Lily, a friend from church camp talked about. She mentioned in her talk

• she is not smart
• have always struggle with her studies
• pushed herself to work hard and to study Master because she was worried that she could not get a job with her degree in Biochemistry
• Biochemistry studies are general so it is harder to get a job anywhere (I can only remember vaguely what she said because it was more than a week ago)

I thought about myself as well. In my first year, I was really ambitious. I decided to study engineering in the hope that I can graduate as an engineer and prove that I am also smart like my sisters and cousins. Not even halfway through the course, I was already thinking, 'can I really pass all these courses? I am really struggling.' I was also constantly complaining to my parents and they finally confronted me and asked me to change, they don't want me to stress too much.

I was alright with the courses I chose for the following year. When the following year came, I was also struggling hard with studying Maths papers. I know there aren't easy courses in any subject so I tried harder. I didn't want to give up just yet considering what I did the year before. That year, I took Geology papers to see how I did and thought Geology is pretty good subject to study in. Yea, I found it ok so I continued the year after that. I also continued with Statistics as I enjoy it. I always have help from my coursemates/friends. I didn't continue studying Maths because it was too hard for me to handle. I don't want to change my mind every year because I don't think I can afford to, it's wasting money as well. I feel guilty for doing that in the past 2 years. I am already in my third year for Statistics and I really think I should finish it off. (I think I am just releasing stress in this way so don't mind that sentence.)

Anyway, back to feeling down about yesterday Stats class. Lecturer decided to give each individuals chances to answer questions and the most correct will get 5 marks at the end of the course. I know I won't be able to get it. But what I am disappointed was that I got the easy question wrong. How stupid, I was just thinking, can I really complete the course with stupid answers like that? Sigh.. meaning that I would have to work extra hard and be prepared to give CORRECT answers when lecturer ask questions.

Relating back to what Lily talked about herself. I realized that I have similar things to what she said,

• I am not smart
• I always have struggles with studies till now
  
• I pushed myself to do double major in Geology and Statistics because it would benefit me in future careers
  

Honestly, I am still really disappointed with my grades from last year. Why can't I do better? Why does everyone else do better than me? Sometimes, I feel like giving up studying. There's one question I keep asking myself since I started uni. Why can't I study engineering like the rest of my friends? I know not everyone can study engineering but the question kept on lingering in my mind till now.

Hiatus for so long

After a long hiatus from internet, I am finally back on blogging. I was just away on field trip and a church camp. It was actually great to be away. I have no worries on other things other than getting informations and putting on maps for the field trip. As for church camp, I don't have to think about anything other than enjoying myself. But there comes the catching up stuff after being gone for so long. The laundry, the food gone bad in the fridge and updates from friends.

I did learnt quite a bit from the church camp. This time, it was about family, friends and future/careers. The talks were interesting except for the fact that the speaker was talking in Mandarin and I could only understand 60% and had to guess or ask friends of the 40%. Yea, I know my Mandarin is not good. I don't go to Chinese school back at home. But I am proud to be educated in English for three years in high school NZ. Meaning that if I was still studying in Malaysia, my spoken English and written English wouldn't be as good as today.

Not much

I felt I haven't been blogging much when I had a look at the dates of all the posts. Well, I do have a lot of things this month. I finished 4 days of conference last week, had a rest and started packing for upcoming field trip and another church camp.

At the moment, the main blog I have been updating since beginning of this month is down so I am thinking of updating in the old blog. But the photoshop refused to open and I don't really want to upload my photos without putting site link. Sigh..

Updates

I was out in uni just now to meet up a friend to discuss assignment and saw our lecturer to ask some questions. She commented that the people who build the Math & Stat building really waste a lot of space in that building. Why is that? Because there was nothing in the middle of the building from level 2 till level 6. There should be more space for students to sit down to talk or discuss or sitting space for the cafe. I always find it hard to find a space during lunch time because there are just too many people around.

Sigh

I don’t know why when my flatmate and I asked a question and the landlord answers differently. Normally, we repeated our question in the hope of getting a different answer but no, we did not. I don’t know if he is just pretending not to understand and keep on giving the different answer hoping for us tenants to give in. It was just last night that my flatmate asked something. The third time, I re-phrased my flatmate’s words and he still gave the same answer. I know I did show this -_- face expression after that. Then, my friends who came over for potluck dinner mentioned that I raised my voice. I was like, yea whatever, I don’t care about what he thinks. If the landlord decides to kick me out from the house, it is even better.

My friends said I was really scary and they never hear me raise my voice so loud. Yea that is why I got bullied. Maybe I should raise my voice if I am not happy. Or not. I don’t know. If I do, then what will happen? Probably leading to something bad like big argument or end of friendships. Sigh, I just don’t know how to act. If I say this, it is my fault, if I say that, it is still my fault. So however it is, it is still my fault. In the end, someone has to lose and that happens to be me. Will this ever end?

Cool to have your own domain

Just the other day, my cousin was telling me about signing up to get a domain of my own. I thought the idea was great. It would be nice to have your own domain. My cousin introduced a website for me to sign up. Before I signed up, I thought how I am going to cope with this new web hosting. I really have no idea on how to deal with the layout of the site. One of my cousin commented that she felt helpless and almost giving up trying to deal with her website. But her sister helped and encouraged her to deal with it and in the end, she has a cool website. So I thought I could use this web hosting to help.

Actually, there are a lot that I think that could help me with the web hosting and also for readings. It is a normal website blog where you can read on other blog posts. The person has blog posts on themes and news on wordpress. I am going through the themes layout.

web hosting

Finding myself

I wrote this on Wednesday afternoon.

I am so sick of doing my assignment. It is only due on Monday but I really want to get on with it. At the moment, I have nothing else to do except doing this super-hard assignment. I bet there is going to be one assignment next week and it is going to be 20% assignment. Now that I mention about assignments, between my geology and stats paper, only stats has assignments. There are no assignments for geology.

I was reading a friend’s blog about how she was trying to find her place in kiwiland. It is really interesting to know people’s point of view especially they are also from my country. She struggles to speak proper English and speaking the slang here. Sometimes I feel like I don’t belong anywhere. I couldn’t say I belong to Malaysian group because I don’t really know what to talk to them and I cannot speak my mother tongue language properly. I can’t say I belong to kiwi group because I am starting to pick up Malaysian slang and they definitely will not understand what I am talking. I feel like I am being thrown in the middle. I went to the CMSA bbq the other day and oh man.. I feel like an outsider there. Seriously, that is how I felt. I don’t think anything you said will make me feel better. Maybe I am so conscious of what people think of me. Where is my don’t-care-attitude when I need it?

Rants

Sigh, I am losing my mood each day. I am supposed to be excited because my birthday is coming and two friends are coming to London. I was excited to be going back to New Zealand for the start of the year. Actually I am a bit sad to leave the comfort of home. But at least I have a purpose to continue life. My studies.

Well, at least I haven’t lost my mood over blogging.

Reason for the loss of mood: my flatmate and I decided to move out after our homestay family bought a house which I assume to be far from university. They wanted to introduce some other homestay but we would be separated. So we decided to move out on our own.

My rants: I wouldn’t like to consider as homestay because we are big enough to look after ourselves. We only want to move into the place because there are two rooms and they include food in our rent. They set up rules for us as well. So that is considered as homestay. One more thing, I did not know anything until my flatmate told me. How come the homestay family never emailed me?

My wrong-doings: Maybe I did decide too quickly and did not even ask for more opinions. I should have been more careful and I do admit I am wrong there. Sorry for the problems caused but I should be allowed to let out my feelings here in the blog where I did say once that it is my place for ranting.

Decision: We decide to re-apply to go back to Ilam Village for our rooms last year. I have a feeling that we won’t be able to get our room type back. However, there are more rooms available in the brand new apartments. I don’t really like the new apartments because it is not central heating and there is no washing machine in the apartment. But what to do? It was really a last minute decision. Besides this, we also look out for rooms available outside. I have emailed them. The only thing to do now is waiting for reply and later setting appointment to see the rooms.

Don’t you think my font looks nice? Hehe..

Chinese New Year

During Chinese New Year (CNY), my parents and I went to Leicester Square to have a look at the celebration. It was really crowded. I could hardly walk properly among the crowded people. I nearly lost sight of my parents, I think. Anyway, we waited to see the fireworks at 2pm, then headed to Burger King for a late lunch.

Valentine's Day

Almost everyone seem to be blogging about Valentine's Day. Well, alright, I will wish everyone Happy Valentine's Day. Honestly, I don't feel anything on that day. I just feel that it is one of the many many days.
Sorry to make people feel down about me saying this but this is what I think. No, there's no nice photos of Valentine gifts like her, her and her. Anyway, for those who celebrate, have a great time.

It's a lesson

Look at what happen to these umbrellas when my cousin and I took them out on a rainy, windy day? It’s a lesson to be remembered. Really, sometimes I think I don’t learn anything because I still bring umbrellas out though the wind is really strong.

Colours

I went to the world's heritage museum in Liverpool last week and was looking at the Colours section. It was saying which is my favourite colour and I was to open the colour window. So apparently that is my personality. A little similar to my personality I guess but why would I want to believe in something like this?

Fabulous

Normally when you stay in a hotel, you don’t really book a really fabulous hotel like this.

When I walked into this room in Milan, I was just so surprised that JY cousin booked a really nice hotel room for all of us. There are two rooms but the layout of both rooms is different. Unfortunately I didn’t get the other one. I didn’t change my phone’s time when I arrived in Milan but I changed my watch’s time. So, I set my alarm at 6.30am the next morning for breakfast. But half an hour before alarm, JY cousin called to ask if we were awake. I answered him, ‘But it’s not 6.30am’ and immediately realised that I forgot to change the time on my phone. *grinning sheepishly

Stonehenge

So, I didn’t blog much here since my cousins were here. I followed one cousin of mine to Stonehenge. It was nice to see those stones, it wasn’t just stones, and it is the world’s heritage. Taking the stone’s photo from an angle makes it so amazing. Just look at it makes your mouth gap in awe.

It is just such a wonderful view, isn't it?